BIMA memo series! Design and Measurements of the Conical Corrugated Feed Horns for the BIMA Array Xiaolei Zhang Radio Astronomy Laboratory and Dept. of EECS Univer yy of California, Berkeley September, 9, 1991 Abstract ‘A now conical corrugated feed horn was designed and fabricated in the fall of 1990 as a test model for the upgrading BIMA antennas. ‘The fractional single-mode ‘operation range of this feed horn is near 50%. The improved design of the mode- Jaunching region allows much superior performances to be achieved on the new feed hhorn compared 0 the existing feed horns on the Hat Creek antennas, in terms of impedance matching, beam symmetry and crosspolarization characteristics, as well as effective matching to the telescope focal region fields in order to obtain higher aperture and beam efficiencies. Over most of the operation range of 70 - 115 GHz, the return, loss level is reduced from the old value of around - 174B to around - 304B, erosspo: larization level reduced from around - 20dB to around - 350B. Using a phase corrector dielectric lens in front of the conical horn aperture, the theoretical aperture efficiency ‘of this new optical system (including illumination efficiency and spillover efficiency) is around 78 - 82 % over a 30 % bandwidth, compared to the value of 72 - 74 9% for the existing optical design, Invoducing a tertiary lens further improves the theoretical aper- ture efficiency to about 84%, ‘The drastic falloff of the aperture efficiency at the high frequency end of the band on all three of the present Hat Creek antennas (measured value of 25 - 50% instead of the theoretical ~ 70%), can not be fully accounted for by the surface loss and feed-leg scatterings. Possible easons for the dropoff of the aperture efliciency on the existing system is also analysed here from the point of view of the old feed hora performances, Measurements on the characteristics of the old Hat Creck homs, holo: ‘graphical measurements of the dish illumination patterns, compared with the calewla- tion results, seem to suppor the arguments,22. 1, Quest for a High Performance Corrugated Feed Horn ‘The corrugated feed horns currently used on the antennas of the Hat Creek millimeter imerferometer follow a design (Fig.t) originally developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Lawrance Berkeley Laboratory for doing cosmic microwave back- ‘ground measurements{1]. To meet their specific requirements, the result of this design is one which has relatively low sidelobes on the copolar radiation patterns, whereas its ‘operation bandwidth is very narrow, and its erosspolurization and retur-loss charac teristics poor. What more, at the high frequency end of the operation band, the inva: sion of EH type higher order modes caused the beam patterns to be severely distorted, «significant amount of the power to be radiated in the crosspolarised component, and phase losses doe to the E and H plane phase unsymmetry are also increased. This is responsible, at least in part, for the severe aperture efficiency drop near the high fre- ‘quency end of the operation band on the current Hat Creck antennas. This is particu- larly worrisome for the existing system, since atthe higher frequeney end (115 GH) ies the carbon monoxide J = 1 -» 0 rotational transition line, which is an extremely important line for astrophysical studies, and atmospheric extinction at 115 GHz already ceause the line to be extremely weak. In the recent expansion and upgrading of the BIMA array, an improved design of the feed horn is therefore needed, in order to reduce its contributions to the system loss and noise, and to achieve better matching 10 the telescope focal region felds, ‘The idea and prototypes of the corrugated feed horns were originated in the early 1960's 10 achieve low sidelobe and symmetric beam radiation patterns. Diffraction analysis has shown that most of the backlobe structure of a pyramidal horn results from energy diffracted by the E-plane edges. This can be understood by the well kknown fact thatthe far field pattem of a Dorn antenna is the Fourier transform of its aperture field distibution. The discontinity of the step distibution at the E plane edge of a pyramidal hom is responsible forthe higher sidelobe levels in its farfild ‘The E- and Heplane radiation pattems of the pyramidal horns are also now symmetric, n the other hand, the single (dominant) mode corrugated feed hom has mainly a (sn) distribution over the aperture, with the first zero of J falling on the edge of the apertute. This distribution has a much smoother truncation near the edge of the aper- ture and thus a moch lower sidelobe level in the far field patterns, It also offers a nearly perfect circularly symmetric and linearly polarized beam, By doing mode syn- thesIs using many HIE type of feed orn modes, an even smoother aperture distnbation and even lover sidelobe levels in the far field can be achieved Although a complete understanding of the feed hom working principles involves the solution of Maxwell’s equations under the boundary condition of the feed horn cor rugations, the process of which I will describe in detil in the later sections, the main result of this solution is easy to understand. A small flare-angled corrugated feed hom can be approximated by a comugated waveguide of constant cross-section, with the effect of the horn flare angle being taken into account by superposing a spherical cap phase dlstribation to the aperture field solution, In corrugated waveguide of largeae ‘enough diemeter, two sets of modes can propagate. These are termed HE}, and EH, ‘modes. (0 is the number of the roots of either the first order Bessel function Jy, or the ‘number of roots of J, first derivative. These roots appear in the expressions of the HB}, and EH, fields, respectively). Here EHj, modes are highly undesirable, since they cause beam asymmetty and crosspolatized radiation, which not only contaminates the polarization purty, but also lowers the aperture efficiency of the telescope system. ‘The HE, modes, on the other hand, can all be used, atleast in principle, to do pattern synthesis. In practice this is not always so easy and to our advantage: fist, an anayti- cal approach is not available 19 contol the amplitude of each mode entering the hom: ‘The conventional practice is to employ a numerical program [2] which models the hhom through cascading the scattering matrices of each cylindrical section, changing the design parameters for the mode-lnunching region each time, and 10 obitin the desired radiation patterns through tial and error. The bandwidth of the resulting design is ‘often not optimized and can get as narrow as 5% to 10%. Secondly, as detailed ‘analysis shows, in the mode launching region the EH type higher order modes and the HE type higher onder modes have very similar cutoff frequencies. That isto say, itis very hard to excite only the HE type higher order modes to do the pattem synthesis, without atthe same time coupling in the EH set of modes. Due to the above mentioned complications involved in designing a multi-mode horn, we decided to make our frst tst model a single-mode horn, to achieve the wid est possible bandwidth and to investigate the ways to improve the feed horn perfor: ‘mance on several important merits. Single mode horns generally have a sidelobe level of about - 25 dB, which is good enough for our current applications, In the design of the comugated feed horn, the so called “throat” oF mode- launch ing region is the most important and most difficult part. Since when the horn starts to flare to bigger aperture, the size of the hom will allow almost all the HEy, and EHiq ‘modes to propagate, we can only select the modes in the throat region, where the horn dimension is still small enough to allow the cutoff of the unwanted modes. Besides acting as the mode launcher and selector, the throat region should also be an impedance tansformer, achieving the smooth conversion of the circular waveguide TE}, mode to the corrugated waveguide HE,, mode, The impedance matching and mode selecting function should work over the entire bandwidth we are interested in, ‘The throat region on the old horn (Fig.1) consisted of only one deep groove, and has very poor impedance matching and bandwidth properties. In the new design of the feed hom (Fig.2), carefully chosen parameters for the throat region allow almost all of the above mentioned goals 10 be achieved. It has a single-mode operation range of about 48% (the widest possible), and the return loss over most of the bandwidth is around or below - 30 4B. In the design process, a new understanding of the ways to simultaneously achieve wideband single-mode operation and wideband impedance ‘matching has also been obtained, which so far has not been reported in the literature, ‘The design for the main body of the feed horn concems flaring the horn to the conect aperture size with a proper flare angle, in order 0 satisfy the requirement placed by the telescope optics. This amounts to secking the best overlap between thefelescope focal region fields and the field horn aperture fields. With the opties fon the existing system, the theoretical aperture efficiency is about 72-74% (this is without taking into account of the cross-polarization Toss and phase loss caused by higher order modes, and also withovt considering feed-leg scattering and surface roughness loss). ‘This number can be increased to about 78-82% if we realize that part Of the loss in aperture efficiency is due to the amplitude- and phase-mismatch loss. To bbe moce specific, if we place the Cassegrain focus inside a feed horn of moderate size, ‘change its positions to search for the best aperture efficiency match, we found that the ‘wavefront curvature and the amplitude distbution ofthe telescape field near the hora aperture usually does not match exactly with those on the feed horn aperture, Thus ‘when we overlap the two fields to calculate aperture efficiency we lose some amount due to this mismatch. This loss is the equivalence of the illumination and spillover loss if we do the overlap of the fields on the telescope dish surface to calculate apenture efficiency. A better amplitude and phase match can be achieved by placing the Cassegrain focus right at the position of the horn aperture, so that the telescope field now has a flat wavefront, and to produce a flat wavefront also at the aperture of the match-sized feed horn. To do this, we could either use a dielectric Lens on the horn aperture to act as a phase corrector, or gradually shape the body of the horn so that at the aperture it becomes a section of the corrugated waveguide again. “This later design has been pro posed and analysed by a group of researchers [3,4]. Since it involves fewer com= Ponents than the first scheme, we have made our initial test model a profiled horn, with an improved throat region. Unfortunately, despite the excellent performance of the new throat during the lab test, we also discovered a much higher level of mode conversion (from dominant mode to HE type higher order mades) inside the hom body ‘than reported in [3]. The conversion is only within the HE group and is due to the ‘wavefront curvature change, The copolar pattems are distorted and crosspolarization characteristics are not affected. We thus decided to pursue the conical horn plus phase corrector lens scheme, which is electrically equivalent to the profiled hora, while preserving the improved design forthe throat region, Since the size of the telescope field scales with wavelength at the secondary focus, while the feed hom field stays the same as frequency changes, in the final optics design we used another lens to refocus the telescope field to a tertiary focus. At the tertiary focus we abiain the image of the telescope aperture and the size of the beam waist i8 froqueney independent. By choosing the proper feed hoon aperture size the ‘match between the telescope field and the feed horn field will also be frequency independent. This gives an aperture efficiency of about 84% across the band|[S]. “The new test model of the conical hom continued to show excellent performance in the throat characteristics, and this time it also produced the desired copotar radiation patterns. In what follows the details about the analysis and the design of the conical corrugated feed horas will be given, and the measurement results of the new conical hom and the eurent Hat Creek horns will be compared,s IL Fields the Corrugated Waveguide ‘As mentioned in section I, we would like to produce the kind of boundary condi- tions which can support corrugated feed horn (more exacily corrugated waveguide) ‘modes. In general these modes can be writen as the superposition of the circular waveguide TE and TM modes of corresponding order raveling atthe same longitu nal velocity. A discussion of the circular waveguide modes ean be found in any stan- dard microwave engineering texi(6]. In a metallic wall circular waveguide of fixed radius, the TE and IM modes will in general have different phase velocities in the propagation direction, owing to their distinct transverse wavevelocities, required by the boundary conditions for the TE and TM cases. In order to equalize the transverse wave velocities, the TE and TM waves should effectively see different boundary conditions cr surface impedances. This type of “anisotropic” boundary condition can be realized by azimuthally grooving the metallic wall, resuling the so called “corrugated waveguide", In what follows, a quantitative analysis of the fields in a corrugated waveguide will be given, through writing these fields as the superposition of TE and "TM moe fields and require them to satisfy the boundary conditions at the corrugated ‘wall The analysis follows mainly those given by Dragone [7.8] Assuming cos® azimuthal variations the fields inside a corrugated waveguide (+ > 1, 8; = O, and for u y finite, this expression reduces to 1@)"120 6 i@) “The two roots ofthe above equation sr: Jue or y=lor (= 7 1 iw) =0 a sieou 7a ho) =0 a) ‘Therefore for large ka, two sets of modes can exis inside the corrugated waveguide, corresponding to the solutions of the above two boundary equations: HB}, modes, u= oy (n= 1.23.1) 10018 of Ip (ea)7 EHjy, modes, u=Ugy (0= 123...) 100ts of Jp (sb) Thus when the boundary conditions (7) are satisfied we can write the transverse com- Ponents ofthe fields in the corrugated waveguide as: z, odie sed oom sem ry therltals| 4 (ons, + ze] & ta) ‘What we would like for the aperture feld of the feed hom is a smooth radial dis- tribution, including a smooth taper atthe edge of the aperure; a symmetric azimuthal Gistribution, and a single lincarly polarized direction for the fields. From the field expressions we obiained for HE and EET modes (92),(9b), we see that these features can only be achieved by the HE group of modes in the limit of y/ka —> =, and can never be achieved by the EH group of modes For the feed horns we normally use, the size of the waveguide near the aperture ‘of the horn are usually big enough to support both type of modes. The only way to avoid the EH type of modes is not to excite them, oF to cut-off these modes in the ‘mode launching region of the horn. As for the modes within HE group, since the second term in the field expression (9) will intoduce beam asymmetry and cross polar- ization, we need to have either y —> 0, which means the depth of the groove d —> N/a, (or ka ~> e, In practice the first condition is usually satisfied atthe center ofthe opera- tion band by properly choosing the groove depth, and the second condition is approxi- ‘mated near the aperture for most ofthe aperture sizes we choose ‘The mode dispersion diagram obtained from (2)(4) under the balanced hybrid condition (y= + 1) is shown in Fig.4 IIL. Design of the Mode Launching Region From section If we leamed that HE}, modes could give us the desired circularly symmetsic and linearly polarized beam. Specifically for our current test model, we are ierested in generating only the HE}, mode, which has a pure J(x) distribution over the aperture of the horn, with the first ze10 of Jp lying on the boundary. Multi-HE- made horn can be made by synthesizing a group of J(v2) distributions with diferent k's. The bandwidth of the multi-mode hom is more limited than the single-mode hoe, due the phase slippage of different modes inside the hora, tis also hard to excite-8- these modes t0 the corect ratio. The possibility of doing mode synthesis to improve aperture efficiency i stil under investigation, ‘As mentioned before, for the usual aperture sizes in use both the HE and EH type fof modes are supported. The only way to ensure single-mode operation is to design @ ‘mode launching region at the throat of the hom such that all the higher order modes are cut-off by the geometry of the throat. The mode launching region should have yet another equally important function, which is to achieve gradual transition from the impedance of a circular waveguide at the beginning of the throat to that of a corru- ‘gxiod waveguide at the end of the thioat, All the mode selection and impedance ‘matching functions have to be achieved over the entire frequency band of operation, 1. Throat Region Design for Single Mode Operation First let us calculate the cutoff frequencies of various modes, From the two boun- dary conditions in (4), we get (without employing the approximation of ka ~» es, since ‘ear the cutoff ka is usually small) P+ w-1=0 (10) where wt Tod, ay Which has the solutions ye otters wend (2) ype oat ied (2b ‘These correspond to HE and EH modes in the limit of kn > © (7-1 ), respee- tively ‘The condition for the cutoff of a mode is tha its z direction propagation constant ‘goes to zero, ie. B -> 0 and cos®, = fk 0. For y # 0, according to (11) this will givelal ©, Therefore we obtain wos E338 as =H y>0 -nafg #328 cw If 7 = 0, this is @ TE type cuofT (since y is defined as the ratio of TM and TE. modes). In this case, inside the main waveguide H, # 0, E, = 0, thus the surface reac- tance X, has no effect on the cutoff. We can therefore replace the corrugated waveguide with a circular waveguide of radius a. The condition for the TE type of<9. cutoff is thus the same as that for a TE mode in a circular waveguide (with > kas B +0) Sitka) = 0 a4), If-7= ©, the cutoff is TM type. The only nonzero z component of the field is E, If the disk making up the groove is thin, the fields can penetrate inside the slot region Therefore we can replace the corrugated waveguide with a circular waveguide of radius b, Thus the condition for the TM type of cutoff becomes Jykb) = 0 as In fact, whether in the cutoff region the field can penetrate the slots oF not also be seen quite initively from the TE: and ‘TM fied distrabutions inside the cicu lar waveguide (Fig.). For TE wave, since the H field (dashed lines) has longitudinal ‘component, the boundary condition will prevent it from penetrating into the slots, we thus have r = ais the radius of the corresponding waveguide, For TM case, the mag- netic field has no longitudinal component, both E and H field can penetrate inside the slots inthe cutoff situation. Therefore the corresponding waveguide radius is r = b When y = 0, 7=21. From boundary condition relation (4), ie a_i) cosy Fc) a6 we must have J(ka) for cox, Besides, when y <0, there can also exists a surface type of mode which is again undesirable, In practice we choose our dimensions in the throat such that we always have y > 0. From the above discussions we get the following mode diagram. (Fig.6). Several mistakes have been comected compared to the original mode diagram given by Dra- {gone[8]. In principle we would like 10 cutoff all the modes besides HE}. In practice EH, can be allowed inside the throat since, from looking at the mode dispersion diagram in Fig-4, we see that as ku increases the B corresponds to EHy, decreases 0 zero. This means thet even if we excited some EH, mode in the beginning, it will dic off as ka gets larger inside the throat region ‘The region for HE}, only propagation (ignoring the EHy, mode) is indicated by the shaded area. The maximum range of single-mode-operation choice corresponds to the part of the double-dashed line inside the shaded region, which gives a specific ‘choice of the initial groove dimensions a and b fora given frequency range. To deter mine the size of a we need also to consider the requirement in the circular waveguide section (see Appendix for details of the choice of a). This later consideration will in general give an a value not very different from that dertermined by the first considers: tion alone, The corresponding b is determined by compromising between placing the Both type of mades have the same cutoff.10- operation point close to the optimum Wa line, and placing the highest frequency operation point as close as possible to the boundary ofthe single-mode region, 30 a 12 achieve the maximum bandwidth in a design. Tis wil in generl give a d =~ a Aea/2s where Ae is the fiee space wavelength at the highest operation frequency. These choice of ab atthe beginning of the thoat will give a single made operation range of about 50%, which i8 just enough to cover our 70 - 115 GHz bandwidth, The throat will gradually Mare the depth of the grooves from Ryu? to Ag (where Rye is the fee space wavelength at the CENTER of the operation band) over a distance of soverl wavelength, to enture gradual inition of exeface impedance and the onto of higher order modes. In our design, this fare of groove depth i realized by changing the the parameter a ony, while keeping b always constant inside the throat. AS we ‘move along the throat region, the operation poins will move on the mode diagram (Fig6) along a series of horional lines stating fom the pots on the line cho. Tis type of throu design generally gives the widest physical range of single-mode propa- gion while we move within the throm region, The schematis for the thoat design ‘ccordng 10 the single-mode requterent aloe i shown ia Fig 2. Impedance Matching Considerations ‘The mode launching region, or the should act at the same time as an Jmpedance transformer, which gradually transforms the feld distribution inside a circu- Jar waveguide to that of a corrugated waveguide (Fig.8). This is realized by a smooth transition of the boundary conditions “The theory of transmission ines tells us that « uniform eansmission line of length 4 can wansform the terminal impedance to the input por in a way such that Za Zitankd, This tells us that a wansmission line of length d= 22 will exactly reflect the terminal impedance to the input por. This relation suggests that a slot depth of 1/2 will effectively ereate the same surface impedance as the perfeet metal wall. Tt seems that our previous choice of the throat design for single-mode operation will ft naturally for the impedance matching purpose. This point is in fact also hinted in Dragone’s monumental papers{7 8} Unfortunately this is not usually sue. The reasons for this ae two fold. First of all to treat the slots as perfect transmission lines, oF to use the impedance transforma tion relation Za = Zankd an ‘we have to be in the regime ka >> 1, and kh <> 1, y= constant and for small flare angled hor, Dragone [7] derived that between two locations slong the horn axis z = 2 and 2 = 2 the converted EH, mode power P, has the following value compared to the incident HE,, power Pa Pz = PyG.393(10-)ytanterl 1-41? ag) where 10.295 ae) sig|t- au) ‘ylang dal ae) em and oc is the fare angle. Therefore, P, = Pox 357(10)y"tan?ee rea) Fory=1 —42qB (22a) ee) 2) Therefore if we keep the feed hom faze angle less than 15°, and do not operate far from the slot resonance, so that y isnot very large, the mode conversion will be small, 2. Determine the Groove Dimensions forthe Crosspolar Radiation Characteristics“13 For a small flare angled conical hom, mode conversion along the feed hom is usually small. The crosspolar radiation characteristics is determined mainly by the intrinsic erosspolar radiations of the dominant HEy, mode We have derived in section II that for a corrugated waveguide of radius a the electric field due to HE, mode can be expressed as B= Alo(nni, — 51M vena, + sin20i) @) 7 where X = Ey/H,, ¥ = H/B, at the boundary. We see from the above field expression that if we want to reduce the value of the second term, which accounts for the beam unsymmetry and crosspolar radiations, we can either make X - Y =0 (grooves at resonance) of ki >» (large aperture size). ‘The aperture size is usually determined by the copolar radiation and telescope optics considerations. For a fixed aperture size the crosspolar radiation characteristics changes with frequency due 10 the change in surface impedance, Usually the slot epth is chosen such that the resonance occurs near the center of the operation band, ‘The bandwidth characteristics ofthe crosspolarization levels for different aperture sizes are given in Fig.11 ‘The groove spacing is chosen such that the it satisfies the fabracation and cost constraint, and yet itis fine enough 10 satisfy the surface impedance approximation. Tests on the groove coarseness effect have been carried out using a program package CWGSCATLIO} which model the hom by cascading the cylindrical sections of the srooves and ridges co obtain the total scatering matrix of the feed hom. The results of these tests, all of them done at 90 GHz, are given in Fig.12. We see that the 3 groove per wavelength results are almost identical to t0 6 groove per wavelength results, with the slight difference in the E and H plane patterns caused by the intinsic HE, radia tions (23). AS the number of grooves decreases the E and H plane pattems differ ‘more and more, indicating the invation of higher order modes. It is generally safe in a design if we stay above 2.3 grooves per wavelength at the high end of the operation ‘band. Our later choice of groove spacing corresponds to 3 grooves per wavelength at the band center and 2.5 grooves per wavelength atthe higher frequency end, 3. Choice of Aperture Size and Hom Flare Angle for Copolar Radiation Charac- teristics ‘The radiation patterns of a corrugated feed horn can be determined from the Fourier transform of the aperture field distributions, For feed horas with large enough aperture size and moderate flare angle, the aperture field is mainly of the form of a truncated Jy amplitude distribution, and a second order spherical cap phase distribution, ‘The exact form of amplitude distribution has been derived in section Il, for HE, ,mode itis given by (23). The phase distribution can be derived as follows,wie Assuming approximate azimuthal symmetry, a condition which holds near the resonance of grooves, the electric field on the aperture can be written as the product of ‘an amplitude and a phase distribution (Fig.13) B= faye ey ‘where fe) i the amplitude distribution given by (23), and 80) = BRO-R) as 1s the phase distribution relative to the center of the aperture, and Bs Is the propagation constant of HIE, mode, = ky for large enough aperture size, Prom Fig 13, RO) = RP! = RL + ge" 26 Leh Rt 7G) | @ ‘Therefore ig? w= 38 2s) ‘The far field pattems can be calculated through the Fourier transform of the aper- ture field (24). The gereral results of these far field calculations for different flare ‘angles are given in Fig.14. In the special case of a flat phase fron, analytical expres- sions forthe far fields are also available, ie. = +n, FF Na(unli, + 7 Nalwvhcosts i+ sinaai ro where asin 30) Natu) 2 Fee MOO) — oOo ep ‘Using either the aperture field or the far field 10 overlap with telescope field at corresponding positions the aperture efficiencies over the frequency band for a specific choice of aperture size can be calcalsted. This allow us to determine an optimum choice of the aperture size for different optics configurations. ‘The conical flare angle has an added effect of causing reflactions atthe end of the throat, because this is a discontinuity if the flare angle at the throat and at the horn body are different. This effect is also tested using the program CWGSCAT, also done at 90 GH, and the results are summarized in Fig.15. Our final choice of 12 degree fare angle clearly placed us in a save region.15- Y. Design Procedure and the Measurement Results on the New and Old Conical Horns ‘The test model for the new conical horn is intended to work with the upgrading new receivers, which have 3 operation bands: 70 - 90 Ghz, 85 - 115 Gha. and 210 - 270 Ghz. The parameters chosen for this model is for the 85 - 115 Ghz. band horn. Horns for other bands can be designed by simple scaling plus some minor changes in the throat. Since besides working on the new receivers we are also interested in fixing up the problems with the homs on the existing antennas, the parameters for the final design of the new conical hora is so chosen that it actually works from 70 to 115 Ghz, to allow the possibility that we might install i on the exiting antennas, ‘The groove ‘depth is nonetheless optimized around 101 Ghz, the center of the new band. ‘The schematics and the parameters for the new conical hom are shown in Fig2, Fig.10 and Fig.16. The input surface has the inner cross-section of a WR-10 waveguide and it fares gradually into a circular waveguide, The dimension of the WR-10 waveguide has the standard value of 0.05" by 0.1", which can support the rec~ tangular waveguide TEjg mode in the 70 - 115 Ghz range. The procedure to deter the radius of the circular waveguide near the end of the transition section is discussed in the Appendix. The final choice of radius a = 0061" allows only the circular waveguide TE,, mode to propagate ‘The # = 02061" circular waveguide connects to the mode launching region or “throat” of the feed hom, The throat consists of 11 grooves of varying depth and width, with the pitch of the grooves being uniform and equals to the value used for the ‘main horn body, Le. h=0.0394", This value is about 1 groove per millimeter or 3 grooves per wavelength near 100 Ghz. The first groove has a depth of dp = 0.0507", ‘corresponds t0 Ag/2 near 115 Ghe. Tis choice of initial ay and by = dy + a with bolt ‘= 0.1117/0.061 = 7.0155/3.8317, corresponds to operation points on the straight line in the mode diagram(Fig.6), with 115 Ghz point near the top of the intersection of the line with the single-mode region (@) and the 70 GH point near the bottom the inter section of the line with the single-mode region (w), as we vary the frequency, The very large ratio of the initial disk width versus the groove spacing, i.e. tof = 0.0344/0.005 = 7/1, makes the value of the guide-wavelength inside the slot approxi- ‘mately that of the fee space wavelength. ‘This makes it possible to for us satisfy both the wide band single-mode operation and wide band impedance matching requirements tsing the same set of throat parameters, as demonstrated in section Ill. "The grooves then flare Hinesely both in depth and width to their values for the main body of the hor at the end of the throat, ic. Vg = 1/2. In the throat region the b value or the outer radius at the bottom of the grooves is kept constant till the end of the throat, so that the operation points move horizontally in our mode diagram (Fig.6) as we move along, the throat, Keeping the maximum physical distance of single-mode propagation, 10 ensure that higher order modes have enough distance to decay.<16- As stated in section IV, the groove dimensions for the main hom body were chosen to achieve the desired erosspolar radiation characteristics. ‘The groove depth d 0.029" is chosen such that itis resonant near the center of the operation band 85 - 115 Ghz, ic. 101 Ghz. The choice of groove spacing b= 0.0394" corresponds to 3 grooves per wavelength near 100 Ghz, ‘The numerical simulations in section IV show that this groove coarseness is enough to ensure HE, mode propagation without con verting it into higher order modes, which happens when the the surface impedance spproximation breaks down. The ratio of ridge wish to groove spacing should be made as small ss possible theoretically to reduce the frequency sensitivity of the crosspolar radiation characteristics. In practice this ratio fs limited by the electoform- ‘ng process. As a compromise a value of Wh = 0.33 or tgs has been used. ‘The flare angle of the hom has been chosen to be 12 degrees to place it within the category of small flare-angled horn, The conical hon flares to an aperture size of @ = 0.3507", determined by the optics considerations of the new system. This gives a total length of the feed horn (rectangular-to-circular transition section + throat + horn flare) of 2.6942". There are akogether 43 grooves. ‘The design as shown in Fig.2,10,16 was sent to the Custom Microwave Co., Colorado to be clectroformed, and after we received it a set of measurements were ‘made at the lab in Berkeley. The results were then compared with the theoretical cal= culations, and with the measurement results for the old Hat Creek hom, ‘The measured copolar radiation pattems of the new conical horn at 90 Ghe is shown in Fig.17. Pattern symmetry is observed between E and H plane pattems, which indicate these are single-mode fields. The copolar patterns are then averaged and plot- ted in Fig.18 on a different scale, to ease the comparison with the theoretical results From this plot the agreement between theoretical prediction and the measurements is obvious. Similar agreement at other frequencies ae also observed, ‘The measured retum loss for the old and the new horns are given in Fig.19, Over most of the frequency range the retum loss have improved from -17dB to -30dB. ‘The oscillations observed on the retum loss plot for the new hora are believed t0 be due to the internal reflections of the slotted line used for measuring the standing waves, The performance at the high Frequency end for the new hom is also limited by the measuring instrument's internal reflections. ‘The true values axe expected to be ‘even better ‘The measured crosspolarization levels of the old and the new horns are given in Fig.20. ‘These levels are measured on a plane 45 degrees in between E and H planes, which in general gives maximum values of the erosspolarization, ‘The peak level of the crosspolarization on this plane is searched, and then compared with the copolar peak to get the relative dB values. The high values of crosspolarization of the old horn beyond 105 Gh. indicates the emerging of higher order EH modes, This can also be realized from the asymmetry of the copolar radiation patterns of the old hor, which will be given in the next section“ie ‘The comparisons of the measurement results between the new and old conical horn, and with the theoretical results, show that the new conical hom gives a big level of improvements over the old model. The degradation ofthe old horns at high frequea- cies accounts atleast in part for the drop in aperture efficiency at higher frequencies in the existing system, asthe calculations in the next section will show. VL Investigations on the Old Hat Creek Horns and Optics, Prepara- tion for the Retrofit of the Existing System ‘The analysis and the measurement results of the previous sections show that the old design of the Hat Creek horns is multi-moded at high frequencies. To quantitatively determine the onset of the multi-modedness and its effect on the aperture efficiency of the existing system, a series of calculations have been done stating from the dimen- sions on the old horn drawings, The program used in this calculation is again the CWGSCAT package. Fig.21 - 24 show the calculated amplitudes and phases of the old hom at 90 GHz aad 115 Gha, It can be seen thatthe 90 GHz pattem is circularly symmetric but the 115 GHz pattern isnot symmettic. These caleulations confirm our previous conclusion thatthe old hora at high frequency is multi-moded. Similar caleulations across the frequency band show thatthe muld-modedness starts around 108 GHz, and gets serious after 110 GHz, ‘The calculated beam pattems in Fig21 and 23 also agree with the holographic meas- ‘urements of the beam pattems on the sky, shown in Fig.25 and 26, The 113 GHe pat- tern is clearly much more asymmetrical than the 90 Ghz pattern, Having obtained the B and H plane patterns, a set of formulas ean be used 1} to calculate the aperture efficiencies due to the contributions of spillover, phaseloss, illumination and crosspolarization, respectively. The results of these calculations are summarized in the plots in Fig.27. It ean be seen thatthe hom starts to become malti- ‘moded around 108 GHz. There is in general a dip in almost all the curves (except for the illumination efficiency, which gets better as the spillover gets worse), The reason for the dip is because that after the horn becomes multi-mode, different modes slip in Phase inside the hom due to their distinct propagation velocities. The amount of the Phase slippage when the modes arrive at the aperture of the horn varies with fre ‘quency, At certain frequency the synthesized pattern will be the poorest, The fact that this dip seem to happen around 110 GHz instead of 115 GH2, as in our real system, is probably due to the machining errors of the old homs (only a few mils of error is ‘enough to shift the frequency by this much), The litle peak inside the dip of the phaseloss efficiency curve is due to the fact that as we increse the frequency from the left side of the dip, different modes change their relative phases as the frequency changes. A this particular frequency, the F and H plane patterns, thus also the phase Patterns, temporarily overlap and then, as frequency increases further, will separate in tan opposite way (le. below this frequency the E plane pattern is wider than the H. plane pattern, whereas after this frequency the H Plane pattern gets wider)18 ‘When we muliply the four efficiency curves on Fig.27, and also incorporate the return loss result of Fig.19 (assuming a return-loss value of 1% for f< 110 GHz, and a retur-loss value of 5% for f 2 110 GH, for simplicity), we obtain the overall theore- ical aperture efficiency of this multiemoded feed horn, as plotted in Fig.28. Also plot- ted on the same figure is the theoretical efficiency of a horn with the same dimensions except thatthe throat has a single-moded design. This later curve is the best that the ‘old Fiat Creek optics design can achieve, provided that the horn performs ideally. This ‘number, 72-749 across the band of 70-115 GHz, can be improved to 78-82% over a 30% bandwidth if we use a phase corrector lens in the aperture of the horn, with @ dierent choice of the aperture size. The number can be furher improved 10 84% by placing the hom and the phase corrector lens at the tertiary focus of the telescope through the use of a terry lens (Fig.29). The match of the telescope field and the feed hor field forthe ternry design will be frequency independent{5]. ‘The calculations and measurements encouraged us to retrofit the new feed hom and optics on the existing system. The tertiary und secondary theoretical aperture Cffciencies are plotted on Fig.30, together with the calculated efficiencies for the old Hat Creck hom. These efficiencies do not include the feed-leg blockage or surface Ruze loss, which will have the same effect on all ypes of designs. From this plot we can sce that at the high frequency end where the dip happens we can expect atleast @ factor of 1.4 improvement due to the feed hon and optics upgrade, This number can bbe even bigger if we consider the fact that the cicular waveguide in the old rectangular-t-cireular transition section design, with a = 0.0625" instead of the new value a = 0,061", was also multimoded at higher frequencies. ‘The retrofit of the existing system was planned and prepared in May and June 1991. By the time this memo is finished, we have actually installed the new horn plus 2 lenses on antenna 1. Similar retrofit will be done for antennas 2 and 3 soon, The results of these reiofts will be summarized in 8 separate memo. Appendix. Design of the Rectangular to Circular Waveguide ‘Transi mn Section ‘The mode Inching region crow) of the fed hom sets as «smooth manson berwoen a comugued waveguide and a ciuar waveguide, wheres the standard co nection othe mixer lok input is rectnglar waveguide. A fuer recangulars- lar waveguide tion tion i hrfore needed fo achieve eco enmecton between te 0 pes of waveguides ‘The retangular waveguide used for he 70 - 115 GHz band is of the pe WR-10, which ts the eros section dimension a= 0.1" and b= 005", Fo ectangulr waveguide TEgg modes, the eto oqueney hs he following general expesion a ea Ve Ike a19. At any frequency (and their corresponding wavelength) only modes with cutoff fre quency smaller (or cutoff wavelength bigger) than the operating frequency (or wavelength) can propagate. Using the dimensions of WR-10 waveguide in this for- ‘mula, we see that TE mode has a cutoff frequency of 59 Giz, where as all the other ‘TEy, modes have cutoff frequencies above 115 GHz. Therefore Tyg is the only ‘mode that can exist in the WR-10 waveguide in the 70 to 115 GH¥z frequency range, Which is also the made we would like to use. The field distributions of rectangular ‘waveguide TE; mode can be found in any standard microwave text, such as in [6]. ‘The dimension of the circular wavepuide is chosen so thatthe ‘Tey; mode can propagate (since this is the mode who’s feld distribution forms a most natural transition between rectangular waveguide TE, mode and corrugated waveguide HE,ymode), whereas most of the other modes are either cutoff by the cireular waveguide dimensions or impossible 10 be excited due to the symmetry of the waveguide. ‘The cutoff wavelengths for the circular waveguide TE,, and TM,; modes have the folowing expressions TH modes ana 2a (ay dmg at here ty the ith root of mh oder Bessel funtion the velocity af ight in free space, and TE modes Qom,= al ay where Va iS the ith root ofthe first derivative of the nth order Bessel function Using these formulas, the cutoff wavelengths can be calculated and they are plot- ted on Fig.31. Our operation range of 70 Ghz. and 115 GHz corresponding to 2. in the range of 428mm and 2.6mm, With a chioce of circular waveguide radius a = 0.061 = 155mm, The comesponding 2 will be in the range of 1.684 and 2.778, In thi region, the only propagating modes are TEy,, TMgy, and TEay. Among them the first one is the desired working move and the second and the third have the field symmetry Which do not couple energy from rectangular TE,, mode, This choice of a is mainly to cutoff the most harmful TMy, mode, while still keeping the size of the ciculas waveguide large enough to reduce metal loss. ‘The final choice of the dimensions forthe rectangular to circular waveguide tran- sition section is shown in Fig-16. Small sections of rectangular and circular waveguide attached at etch end of the transition section are for the purposes of securing both the smooth transition and the higher order mode eutoff20. Acknowledgement ‘My work on the design and test of the corrugated feed horns could not have completed \withoot the help and encouragement of many others, T would lke to thank Mr. Emory Horvath and the Custom Microwave Co. for fabricating an excellent model of the feed hor which matches the design beautifully. ‘Thanks for Dan Hoppe at JPL for providing us the CWGSCAT program package for modeling the feed horns. 1 thank iy advisor Jack Welch for assigning me this interesting project for part of my thesis research, I thank the people in the Radio Astronomy Lab in Berkeley. especially peo- pile in the receiver group, for their ever lasting interests in my progress, for theit con- tinued support and help. Special thanks for Jan Tauber, Dick Plambeck and John Lugten who helped be with the inital setup of the measurement seattering range, and ‘who skillflly repaired some of the broken instruments used in the tests. Thanks 10 John Lugten, Jery Hudson and Jack Welch for many interesting discussions on optics and feed horns, Thanks to Dick Plambeck and William Holzapel for providing the holograpy measurement plots used in this memo, References [1] M, A, Janssen, 8. M. Bednarczyk, S. Gulkis, H.W. Maslin and G. F. Smoot," Pattern Measurements of Low-Sidelobe Horn Antenna,” JEEE Trans, Antennas Propagat., vol. AP-21, No.4, pp. 551-585, July 1979. 12} G. L. James, "Analysis and design of TEL-to-HEI1 corrugated cylindrical waveguide mode converters," IEEE Trans, Microwave Theory Tech, Vol. MTT- 29, pp 1059-1066, 1981 [3]. S. F Mahmoud, “Mode conversion on profiled corrugated conical horas.” Proc. IEE, Vol. 130, Pt H., No. 6, Oct. 1983 [4] PI.BClarricoats and A.D.Olver, * Corrugated Homs for Microwave Antennas, London, UK: Peter Peregrinus, 1984 [5] R.Padman, JAA. Murohy and RB. Hills," Gaussian Mode Analysis of Cassegrain Antenna Efficiency," [EEE Trans. Antennas. and Propag. Vol. Ap-35, No 10, (ct, 1987 [6] N. Marcuvitz, " Waveguide Handbook," London, UK: Peter Peregrinus, 1986 (71 ©. Dragone, ~ Reflection, transmission, and mode conversion in a Corrugated feed," Bell System Tech. Journal, July-August 1977, pp 835-867 [8] C. Dragone, * Characteristics of a broadband microwave corrugated feed: a com. parison between theory and experiment,” Bell System Tech, Journal, July-August 1977, pp 869-888, [9] PEGoldsmith, " Quasi-Optical Techniques at Millimeter and Submillimeter Wavelengths," in Infrared and Millimeter Waves Vol. 6, Ch.S, 1982ome {10} D. Hoppe, "CWGSCAT™, a program package developed at JPL, and distributed by COSMIC. Co. [11] B. MacA. Thomas, “Theoretical performance of prime-focus paraboloids using cylindrical hybrid-mode feeds," Proc. IEE Vol. 118, pp 1539-1549, Nov. 1971.SULOHL 49049 YEH PIO BY) 405 smoker] UBS "T ant z oO a Ae Coes AW viaUIOH] 1E2IUOD MAN 4} 105 node] UBISOG"Z ANTI, 18092T | “PEEP O WOT seqnoaio zero. — orn —apindoaesy payesnasoy's aandyy + F ini az oz Naketwi Hay z 4 = uum) *Bik Figure 4, Dispersion Diagram for the Corrugated-Waveguide Modes Under the Balanced Hybrid Condition (y = + 1). TE,; Mode Also Shown for ComparisonFigure 5. Circular Waveguide Modal Field 1; and TMg, ModesFigure 6 Mode Diagram for Corrugated Waveguideuoyyeiodg apoyy afSuyg 05 usys9q LOI, 94 Jo B>!0UD a]qISSOg “L 2ANBLYsuonnqasia Prt 99910 "GH apinBoaey paresnssoD pus Nay spinor, seyNDIID “g 948 Ugg Nan(C70 =8 7 = q) suopeLE WBdaq a10019 ayp 40} woNE|ND|ED sIuCMARH BOLUS “6 B4N3L otSuyoyep-souvpadwy pueg apis, PUE UONEIAdG apoyV-o18UIg Pu OpIAA 40) UBIsOq WoAUL, “OT BN3hI T Jezo}o| 4 A000 r40 dB -50 06 08 1:0 v2 Ye Figure 11. Bandwidth Characteristics of the Crosspolarization Levels980], SSOUISIEOD eA “ZT 24NBL sasiep ) eft waegnto sesaep ) ator wanna oe oe ae eos. or see ae) at . 7 oP eee eeeWoy] paag PayeBNAO; [eaUOD yA 40y oH ED asvyq aanyiody “Ey aundpyRELATIVE POWER, 48 -20 “30 COCA CAS N 1 i: - HTT a rr ura sin Figure 14. Universial Patterns for the Small-Flare-Angle Corrugated Horns Under Near-Balanced Conditions (A = 22/21, where 1 is the flare length of the horn)sisoJ, Buy a4vLy “ST ounsiy, (ap ) sng 03 oe o@ T T T T T hae aS we yi sey ome 2a ‘ omg ed oN PTE qo OE S mBey ese enstog 52 a aE bE L L 1 1 L 7 (eastep ) ety oy I PM oe ok (ap) wannaued], apINaaead “gy aan sto — .sx0 ° apinBoawm seIN9I10 ,ZZT'O ©} OTA fo uoTysueT n/ege - 90 suey,wioH [UOT KAN ay) Jo susaHEg UOMIPEY sejodoD paunseayy “L] andy ( seoaSop ) soruy 02 ost ot out oot ost TT wroyed eue[d H USeP wreyEd OUI J :PHOS ot oz oF Cap ) surayedsusoned UoREIPEY Awjodo; oy JOJ yNoWINseoIY PUE C109yJ, UODMIg UOSRdWOD “gL BINT (9 user 4 9 ¥ s z ‘poyemoyeo :ss0s0 rT pamsvour :pros payee Jo stove itrriitiieitisiité oe se- oz st- or Cap ) ened(p) WOH MON ays PUL (E71) SUCH 49949 FH PIO € BUI Jo Sasso] WAMIDY ay Jo Uos|eduIOD “6 PANE ( 7H ) Aowenbosg sit ort sot or Cr a ee EPP TTT petosrirticirtiriitiiins soiitio rotiiiits os— oF oe- oz or ot (ap ) sso7 wma(© Woy HON oy) pue (1) WOK, PIO By} Jo s[osr] uoREZULJodsso4y 943 Jo UostBdUOD “pz a1nsLy (zap ) Aowenbaag st ort sot oor 6 08 8 aL Cap ) 12a07 wopyozqsejodssorgZHD 06 VE WOH PIO ay Jo sopmyydury payEIND,eD “IZ 24NBEL (s0aBop ) fay st ° Tot mt Lat a | ™— weyed SuBId H Sep cureyed SURG J :PHOS 2HD 06 :Souenboay os- oF oe oz- or- poritiriitirirtiriitiris or (ap ) woveZHD 06 3 WOH PIO aM JO SaSeq_ pareNd[eD “zz ound ooz— oor ot oz ( e0afop ) osougTHD STL 38 WOH PIO AUN Jo sopnyyduy payensqed “gz Pansy ( sea8ep ) offuy st ° oT s T a nie T1708 wowed euyd H “USep Ce wroyed OuN[E F PHOS oe- oz~ or- ZHD gTt :fouenboag rositirirtiriitisiitiiis a petri terri tii titi iit, Cap ) moved24D SULT WOH PIO Hp Jo soseud parEIMD}ED “pz aanyy ( eeuBap ) orSuy st oe sz oz o02- oor (eex8op ) oso oot | 002Pry t Ty 7 TR Tt Triry>A of 1 t) I 4 apo FE _ gE | QO i | & L a c= SOE oO LL . 2c o£ wot cn of sb Frtiriit Lo I -10 -5 0 5 10 az offset (arcmins) Figure 25. Holographical Measurements: Antenna 3 Beam Pattern on the Sky at 90 GHzOo Si 10 1 offset (arcmins) -5 Contours in { db steps from —1 to -14 + TTY TIT ya 1] ° Lo pet E E Cte eta rela, o —16 5 5 az offset (arcmins) Figure 26. Holographical Measurements: Antenna 3 Beam Pattern on the Sky at 113 GHzUAOHL 4249 TH PIO AUN 404 ‘S80 uopeuunyy pue sso] sasoiuds ‘ssopaseyg ‘ss07] woNestejodssos;) 0} ang sapusjoysy aanysady 0} SuoNNLNUOD parEINDeD “Lz aundLy (= ) manda ( =m) Somsnay oot oe ox EI oe oe on oo T 7 T T T T T T T ju 5 i Hs doco worse) Js Eat fF o, or oe i" T T T T b dw | 8 a soonest toms Jorepars wont L 1 1 . 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